Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data released last week show a somewhat more efficient mortgage market in 2015 as fewer loan applications were declined and more turned into originated loans. Lenders processed $2.576 trillion in mortgage applications filed in 2015, converting them into $1.651 trillion in purchase and refinance originations, a 32.9 percent increase from the previous year. Some 56.5 percent of loan apps turned into closed loans, up from 53.8 percent in 2014, and the overall denial rate fell 2.9 points to 20.1 percent. Most of last year’s origination surge came...[Includes one data table]

The CFPB has formally authorized the collection of expanded Home Mortgage Disclosure Act information on race and ethnicity, as per the Equal Credit Opportunity Act and Regulation B, in 2017. “At any time from Jan. 1, 2017, through Dec. 31, 2017, a creditor may, at its option, permit applicants to self-identify using disaggregated ethnic and racial categories as instructed in appendix B to Regulation C, as amended by the 2015 HMDA final rule,” the bureau said in a Sept. 29, 2016, notice in the Federal Register. During this period, a lender permitting applicants to self-identify using these categories shall not be deemed to violate Regulation B Section 1002.5(b). Further, the lender shall also be deemed to be in compliance with ...

CFPB Director Richard Cordray appeared before credit union representatives recently and touted the performance of their industry’s mortgage operations under the bureau’s mortgage rules. “Our first set of mortgage rules have been in place for over two and a half years, and we are seeing great progress,” Cordray told the National Association of Federal Credit Unions. “In 2014, the first year of our ability-to-repay rule on mortgage origination, owner-occupied home purchase mortgages increased by 4 percent, according to HMDA data, and growth was even stronger last year: home purchase mortgages increased by an estimated 13 percent to 14 percent.” In fact, as it turns out, the mortgage industry overall actually did slightly better than Cordray said. According to analysis of ...

A strong tide of refinance activity lifted mortgage origination volume in 2015, according to a new Inside Mortgage Trends analysis of Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data released late this week by federal regulators. Aggregate national data released by the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council show a total of $1.651 trillion in first-lien mortgage originations for home purchase and refinance. That was up 32.9 percent from 2014 but failed to ... [Includes one data chart]

H.R. 5983, the Financial CHOICE (Creating Hope and Opportunity for Investors, Consumers and Entrepreneurs) Act by Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-TX, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, has incorporated the provisions of a number of bills that have either already passed the committee or the full House of Representatives and that would affect ...

The CFPB recently provided some written guidance on its mortgage rules to the Conference of State Bank Supervisors. The guidance, in the form of a letter, highlights some of the important changes to the mortgage rules that likely apply to many of the small lenders that CSBS members supervise. The letter, a copy of which was obtained by Inside the CFPB, came in response to a meeting this spring between Texas Department of Banking Commissioner and CSBS Chairman Charles Cooper, members of the ...

The House Financial Services Committee this week marked up, mostly on party lines, a comprehensive alternative to the Dodd-Frank Act that would, among other things, create a legal safe harbor for mortgage loans that are originated by a lender and then held in portfolio on its balance sheet. Democrats unanimously opposed the bill and refused to offer a single amendment, continually railing against Wells Fargo and accusing the Republicans of wanting to take the nation “back to the regulatory Stone Age.” The bill passed...

Although single-women borrowers are more likely to pay their mortgages on time than single-male borrowers, they tend to pay higher mortgage rates and are more often denied credit. Those findings come from a new Urban Institute study that merged Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data for 2004-2014 with CoreLogic data on loan performance. A combination of a male and female borrower (usually in that order) accounted...

Most of the small-entity participants in the review processes run by the CFPB before it came out with four major mortgage rules felt they were hurried by the process and unsatisfied with the final results, the Government Accountability Office said in a recent report. The GAO took a look at the experience of the 69 Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act (SBREFA) panel participants involved in evaluating the likely effects of the CFPB’s TILA/RESPA Integrated Disclosure rule (TRID), the mortgage servicing regulation, its loan originator compensation rule, and the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act regulation. Of the 57 small-entity representatives GAO interviewed, “two-thirds stated not enough time was allotted to discuss at least one of the topics on the panel agenda ...

One mortgage lender recently inquired of Michael Goldhirsh, director of legal and regulatory compliance for the Lenders Compliance Group, as to whether the definition of “application” in the CFPB’s TILA/RESPA Integrated Disclosure rule (TRID) triggers or otherwise affects reporting under the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act. In a recent blog posting, he replied: “The short answer is that receipt of some or all of the six pieces of TRID application information does not necessarily trigger an application for purposes of HMDA reporting.” Goldhirsh went on to explain that Regulation C defines an application for HMDA reporting purposes as an oral or written request for a home purchase loan, a home improvement loan, or a refinancing that is made in accordance with ...